Over the last few days, the term “bear hug” had Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke making headlines as the NHL tested his rule where defensemen could “bear hug” a player near the boards to limit potential for injury. Coming out of the RDO Camp, Burke is back in the headlines as he’s offered up the Maple Leafs as guinea pigs during the preseason to further test some of the potential rule changes. Hopefully there won’t be anymore animal references for the rest of the offsesaon.

“We’re willing to try it in our pre-season games, the rule changes, the nets and the cameras. The other team has to consent, but if (the league) needs a guinea pig, we’ll be the guinea pig.”

It would be good to see some of the potential rule changes in action with NHL players during live game action in the preseason. The HD cameras and curved glass look like they could instituted around the league as early as this season—but some of the other rules could get a look as well. Burke specifically mentions the shallow nets getting a look; would NHL defenseman make use of the extra space when making outlet passes? Would offensive players utilize the extra room and better passing angles to create scoring opportunities? These are things that we’d find out as the NHLers played a handful of games under the new conditions.

The more we see these changes in the place, the better equipped the league would be to make decisions that affect the game. It would be nice for fans to be able to have another reason to watch the meaningless games since the preseason is more about preparation than the results. Watching new rules being tested is a better sales pitch than telling fans that the ECHLer on the 4th line has a legitimate shot at making the team next year.

It would be great if the NHL takes Burke up on his offer to try out some of the prospective rules. Put the cameras in the Leafs preseason games to see exactly how much of a difference they’ll make. Find the best camera angles in the preseason so once the cameras are utilized in the regular season, they’re already in the proper location. Put the verification line in just to make sure the referees on the ice have no issues when calling a goal on the ice. None of these rule changes should present a huge problem—but why not make sure in games that don’t matter? There’s no such thing as “too much information” when tweaking the game, right?

Brian Burke just presented the league with an opportunity to test out changes on a grander scale. Hopefully they’ll take him up on the chance to get things right.

For the second year in a row, Brendan Shanahan and his cohorts at the NHL league office will play with their own personal mad-science lab in Toronto next week. The league plans on testing out rules that have no chance of ever passing, rules that already should be in the league, and rules that are being tested just to appease a certain general manager in the area. Some of the rules are subtle changes that could have big-time effects on the game if implemented. Then there are other changes that will stick out like John Scott at a midget convention. Hopefully there won’t be any images like this one from last year’s R&D camp. That thing never had a chance.

1. Offside variation (offending team can’t change and face-off in its end zone)
Fans reactions to the dreaded offside call on a 3-2 odd-man rush would go from “how hard is it to stay onside” to the more dire “if they score on this faceoff, I’m going down to the locker room after the game to yell at so-and-so.” It’s understandable for the punitive measures taken to discourage icing, but this seems like an extreme measure to eliminate a play that is often caused by over-aggressiveness. If anything, this could discourage speed in the neutral zone and cause players to be more cautious when they’re on the attack. Isn’t that the exact opposite of what the league has been trying to promote?

2. ‘Hybrid’ icing
They might as well keep testing this rule until the GMs have the good sense of passing it into law. It’s clear that with the increased speed of today’s game (without obstruction) and without the help of goaltenders handling the puck, the most routine icing play has become dangerous for the defenseman chasing the loose puck. Watching international events that employ no-touch icing shows that there’s still a time and place for the end-zone chase. It’s frustrating to watch when an offensive player is clearly going to get to the puck first only to have the play blown dead. Hybrid icing brings the best of both worlds: it allows players to chase the puck, but protects defensemen in a vulnerable position.

3. Delayed penalty variation (offending team must exit zone in possession of puck to stop play)
This is a rule that has a ton of potential. The league has tried to implement rules that the offending team has had to control the puck (as opposed to just touching the puck) in recent years, but this takes the rule to the next level. It further rewards a team for pressuring their opponent, while not letting the offending team off the hook by simply grabbing the puck. Now, they’d have to do something with it. Depending how this rule is implemented in the R&D camp, it could be something the GMs take a strong look at down the road. One tweak might simply require the offending team to clear the zone—not necessarily with possession. Requiring a team to gain possession and skate the puck out of the zone might be asking a little too much. Firing it past the blue line should be enough.

4. Shallow-back nets
This is one of those rules that doesn’t seem like a big deal until you see it implemented on the ice. Last season, this was one of the more surprising suggestions because of the multiple advantages it creates for the offensive team in the attacking zone. Obviously, shallower nets allow for more space behind the net; for players who are always looking for time and space, any little bit helps. But surprisingly, it was the passing from behind the net that struck me as the biggest advantage to spring from the shallow nets. Without as much net obstructing play, there are better/different passing angles for creative passers to exploit from Gretzky’s Office. Back door plays and plays that go against the grain open up like never before.

5. All penalties to be served in their entirety
Talk about opening Pandora’s Box. Imagine a world where every 2-minute minor penalty is treated like a 5-minute major. The opposition can score as many times as possible; only after two minutes will the offending player finally be released from the box. Remember all of those questionable calls in the playoffs with accusations of diving? With so much more on the line, there’s a good chance diving would increase in direct proportion to scoring output. What about when a team takes a 2-minute penalty when they’re already on the penalty kill? Does that mean the team can score on the 2-man advantage as many times as possible? A simple delay of game call, or worse yet, a blown call on a nothing play, could change the entire complexion of any given game. If anything, the officials should be the ones who shoot this rule down.

What rules are you looking forward to seeing this summer? More importantly, which rules would you like to see implemented in the next few years? Let us know in the comments.

With the NHL rule book being deep enough to cover most instances of play that go on, trying to find new ways of doing things makes sense. With everything they’re working on at this year’s camp, however, there’s one rule tweak that isn’t being examined closer and we’re curious why Brendan Shanahan and company aren’t looking it over.

You’ve seen it happen during a game too many times. A team is trying to play the puck out of their defensive end and a player tries to bounce the puck off the glass and send it down the ice. Instead of putting the puck off the glass and clearing it down for a likely icing call, they miss the glass completely and put the puck in the stands. In the days before the NHL lockout, that would just result in a faceoff in that team’s end while both teams could make changes. Now it’s a minor penalty for the offending player that put the puck off the rink and that’s not right.

Punishing players that do it on purpose to relieve pressure with two minutes in the box and making their team have to kill off a penalty is something we agree with. If you bust a guy that’s absolutely doing it on purpose, then by all means put him in the box. Our issue with the way it’s called, however, lies with how it’s a blanket call. No matter how it ends up over the glass, it’s a penalty. How many times can you count during the season where it’s a player doing it unintentionally that gets booked for a call? Too many to count for our liking and handing out power plays like candy does nothing to solve the issue with flow of the game.

Our solution to this is to treat the puck over the glass as if it was icing. The team dumping the puck into the crowd wouldn’t be allowed to change lines while play is stopped and the faceoff would end up in their end of the ice giving their opponents the offensive starting place they would get whether it was the old rules or the new rules. Since teams that would be putting the puck out of play on purpose would be doing it for the same reason a team would ice the puck, why not just treat it the same way?

Giving out penalties to help boost scoring is something that helped the NHL come flying back out of the lockout. Penalties were at an all-time high thanks to the NHL reemphasizing the rule book and teams piled on the goals at the man advantage. Giving out needless penalties for plays that aren’t even meant to get an edge feels counterproductive to keeping the pace of the game going.

The other side of this is how it works in the playoffs. We know the officials swallow the whistles more in the postseason and we’ve come to accept that. The one time they don’t do it, however, is on plays where the puck is put over the glass. After seeing players get interfered with all over the ice, high sticks missed, and all sorts of other malicious and purposeful illegal activities without a call the puck over the glass call is made every time.

That makes things a bit screwed up and if it’s those calls that officials need to have happen in order to give a team a power play in the playoffs, that’s got more to do with how they’re calling the game and not the rules themselves. Instead of having the added nonsensical controversy, we can just have it treated the way we do icing and call it a day. After all, the last thing anyone wants to see is Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals end up in overtime only to be decided because a defenseman missed hitting the glass with the puck by an inch on an attempted dump out of the zone.

While summer can be boring for hockey fans, for those running the NHL August is a fun month of trying things out that could eventually become changes to the sport. The annual Research & Development Camp that happens in Ontario gives NHL leaders the chance to not just look at top prospects for next year’s draft but also to see what rule changes they can implement to improve the game.

At next week’s camp, they’ll be spending two days examining all sorts of different elements to the game both with rules and how technology can be used to better the game for officials as well. They’ll even be testing one rule out that used to exist in the NHL. Hey, give them points for being totally thorough. With Penguins coach Dan Bylsma and Coyotes coach Dave Tippett there to help lead the way in instruction, they’ve got two of the brighter minds in the game helping out as well.

“Whether we’re trying something that is a popular idea or an unpopular idea, all of it is done to just give us more information,”Brendan Shanahan, the NHL’s Senior Vice President of Player Safety and Hockey Operations, told NHL.com. “This is all about us being proactive and not reactive. The game has never been better, but we don’t want to rest.”

As for what they’re looking at and testing this year, you can see the full list here but while they’ll be testing out a lot of the same things as they did last year (hybrid icing, no-touch icing) there’s a few new things they’re looking at this year including moving face-offs following an offside into the offending team’s zone, limiting line changes at stoppages in play and removing the trapezoid that restricts goaltenders’ puck-handling.

The last one listed there is the most stunning since that’s just how the NHL used to be. While you’re wondering why they need to test that out, it’s mostly because the game is faster and is played so much differently than it was while the league went without the trapezoid. Adding the trapezoid limits the goalie’s ability to handle the puck behind the net but also prevents us from seeing goalies that are poor at handling the puck away from the net committing awful turnovers that lead to embarrassing goals.

Other rules that will be tested again that make way too much sense to add include:

Using a second verification line in the goal to prove whether or not a puck fully crossed the line
It has no bearing on the flow of play and is needed simply for replay purposes. This is something they should have in place already… Unless on-ice officials would get confused seeing the puck cross the line on close plays.

Hybrid icing
This gives you the best of both worlds on icing plays. If the defending player beats the attacking player on a puck chase to the faceoff circle, icing is called. If not, it’s waved off and they can both pursue the puck as normal. It’s instituted this way in college hockey and works surprisingly well there. If you want to save injuries on puck chases, this is a good way to do it.

Serving full penalties
This is another rule that used to exist more than 20 years ago in the NHL but went away. In this one, a player serving a minor penalty sits for the full time. That way if you commit a dumb penalty and your team is really bad at killing them off, you can get punished badly. Having this coupled with how faceoffs come to the penalized team’s end already could boost scoring.

They’ll also be testing out different technology on the ice as well and these are changes that would make a ton of sense to have implemented already.

In-net camera – mounted camera at one end with one net with camera view focused on the goal line to help verify goals

Robotic camera – to test camera angles for coverage closer to ice

Video replay application review

Curved glass – protection options at players bench areas

Allowing officials to communicate with each other while far apart makes so much sense it hurts. For plays where there’s a goal mouth scrum and the puck is loose is where this would help the most. Anything that makes use of technology to assure whether or not a puck is across the line should be in place regardless. Robotic cameras would be especially helpful for high-sticking calls on goals to see whether or not a player did bat one in wrongly.

How these things test out in practical application will be fun to see the results of. While none of these things are ready to be put in place by the league as of yet, future rule changes can come to rise out of this.

For the second year in a row, Brendan Shanahan and NHL executives will host their Research, Development and Orientation Camp to try out some of the rule change suggestions advanced by the various general managers. Again, the league has looked towards draft eligible prospects to use as their guinea pigs—they’ll be the hockey players trying the new rules out over the two day camp. While all of these prospects have been playing in front of scouts for years, many times this will be their chance to make a good first impression on the 30 general managers.

The list of prospects includes some of the very best draft-eligible players North America can offer. Nail Yakupov, Ryan Murray, Alexander Galchenyuk, Jacob Trouba, and Nick Ebert are all expected to be first round selections at the NHL Entry Draft next June. On the ice, the prospects will be led by Pittsburgh Penguins head coach Dan Bylsma and Coyotes head coach Dave Tippett.

From an NHL press release, the following players have confirmed their participation: